Ex-employee sues PIMCO over wrongful termination

A former portfolio manager at Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO) is crying foul after the company fired him last year.

Jason Williams claims in a suit he filed last week in a California state court that after he reported that several senior managers were engaging in illegal activities, PIMCO handed him his walking papers. In his suit, Williams says that some of the managers were engaging in insider trading and manipulating the price of the world’s largest bond fund (PIMCO Total Return), among other things, all during the height of the global financial crisis.

Williams says he reported the misconduct to compliance officials and Chris Dialynas, a managing director and member of the company’s investment committee. After he made the report, Williams says PIMCO lowered his pay and other employees subjected him to verbal abuse. The company eventually fired him in March 2012.

But no one in the case seems to be talking. Just three days after he filed the suit, Williams dismissed it, and his lawyers are currently in talks with PIMCO about resolving it, a source told Thomson Reuters. But PIMCO and Williams’ lawyers are mum.

"As a matter of policy, we do not comment on legal matters," a PIMCO spokesman said. "However, PIMCO performs an appropriate review of all employee complaints or concerns." Dialynas couldn’t be reached for comment either.

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